A few months after graduating college, I packed a suitcase and moved to Bratislava, Slovakia, for six months. It was a place I’d never heard of—let alone visited—but I’d landed a temporary job at an international advertising agency, and that was reason enough. Looking back now, decades later, the adventure set my life on a completely different course than what I had planned. From Slovakia, I traveled to Italy until I ran out of money. Instead of going next to Los Angeles, as I had been planning to do, I packed my bags and flew to New York City to crash on a friend’s floor while I looked for another temporary job. I’ve now lived in New York my entire adult life, but I’ve always wondered what my world would be like today if a different decision—or fate—had sent me somewhere else. Apparently, others have too.
During the first few months of the pandemic, I watched as two themes played out among my friends and follows on social media: The majority locked down as the world seemingly descended into chaos; then, there were the outliers, those who for individual reasons made a move—often to a very unexpected place—out of want, or need, or sometimes both.
This past spring, as coronavirus vaccines rolled out and travel loosened up a bit, I fled to Mexico City, desperate to shake off what had been a dark year for NYC by renting an apartment there for a few months. My own “move” turned out to be temporary, but not everyone’s was. For those who made the choice, did a snap decision to change a living situation in uncertain times lead to regret? Was life better now for those who relocated, or did they want to return and resume the life they left? Would they do it all over again if given a choice or chance? And did they learn the truth of that old saying? “Wherever you go, there you are.”
Alessandro Bellini was born in Florence and spent much of his childhood there. Several years ago, Bellini—who by spring 2020 had been living in Chicago for well over two decades—and his wife, Sarah Borland Bellini, purchased a home in his Italian hometown with, he says, “a vague plan in mind to possibly move sometime in the future.”
Then the coronavirus crisis hit and sent the United States and the rest of the world reeling. “The pandemic had us think, ‘Well, truly we don’t know how much time any of us have so let’s make our plans and just do it now,’” he tells Grazia USA.
The couple understood a sped-up timetable meant that their 9-year-old daughter, Elena, would have an easier time transitioning to a new school and country because she would still be young.The move, he says, became a teachable moment:“We explained to her how life is full of changes and how people are often coming and going in life.”
In fall 2020, the family sold their home and began a new life. The hardest part about leaving their old life in Chicago behind, Bellini says, was saying goodbye to loved ones. Day-to-day issues in their new home country included learning Italy’s system for dealing with the pandemic, from regional lockdowns and curfews to grocery shopping and overcoming bureaucratic hurdles—a potentially confounding issue even in non-pandemic times.
“My wife and daughter also have the challenge of learning another language,” Bellini says, observing that Elena is learning Italian quickly and already sometimes steps in to act as translator for her mother. Not so much of a challenge for the three: Florence’s slower pace means they have a less hectic lifestyle than in Chicago. “We take longer walks and spend more time together as a family,” Bellini explains. Indeed, priorities have shifted for many post-COVID, even if our surroundings haven’t changed so drastically.
Bellini and his wife plan to return to Chicago for summers with their daughter, and the couple now wishes they had made the hop across the Atlantic even sooner. “It was often in our conversations about the possibility to move to Florence, and we would do it over again in a heartbeat,” he says.
Another couple, Eduardo Polo and his husband, Erik Savoie, also found a way to turn the crisis to their advantage. When in spring 2020 it became obvious the pandemic was spreading unchecked across North America, the couple was living in Toronto and initially planned to wait out the crisis in the Canadian city.
“We then thought that since we did not have an office to go to because all work had gone remote, it would be great if we tried to make this pandemic work in our favor and explore the United States,” says Polo, who grew up in Spain. (His husband is originally from Pennsylvania.) “My spouse and I are huge fans of the U.S.A.—we met in New York City when we were both working there—so we thought we should embrace the more rural lifestyle and explore some areas we had not been to, this time for longer periods than just a vacation.”
So, the couple embarked on an itinerary of six-week rentals in Kentucky, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and New Mexico before finally winding up last February in Johnson City, a college town tucked in northeast Tennessee’s Blue Ridge Mountains. “The funny thing is that before the pandemic, we had not even heard of Johnson City, and thanks to all the road trips we had to do when we were driving from one short-term accommodation to the next, we happened to stop in Johnson City for lunch,” Polo says. “We promised ourselves that we would return because we wanted to explore the area further.”
The two arranged in Johnson City what was meant to be another new temporary home on their list of destinations. One day during breakfast, Polo says, he was browsing a real estate website. “I realized that there were very cute homes in the area, and I thought the [affordable] prices were a mistake,” he explains. “Something told me it was time to invest, especially after falling in love with the area.”
He and his husband talked it over and decided to contact a real estate agent. One morning, they spotted a new property that had just come onto the market and agreed they liked it, at least on paper. “We did not want to get too excited, but we went to see it that afternoon,” Polo says. “Erik and I looked at each other and said, ‘This is it.’ It was a very rainy day and we loved it, and they say that if you love a house on a rainy day, it means you will always love it, and, so far, it is true.”
Now, instead of Toronto’s traffic, says Polo, “we have miles and miles of trails, mountains, and lakes all around us. We have not been bored for a second, although you must love nature and outdoor experiences if you want to live here.”
Like others who moved during the pandemic, Polo and Savoie did have to face new issues, ones they likely wouldn’t have confronted if they had stayed put in their Canadian comfort zone. “The most challenging part is being in a same-sex relationship in the South,” Polo reveals. “However, we like to think that we can expose people to diversity and that we can try to do our part to turn this into a positive situation.”
Johnson City, for example, had a Pride parade the year before the pandemic started, and Polo and Savoie heard it was a huge success. They will likely be around to experience the next parade in person, since they eventually plan to live between Tennessee and Canada as the pandemic eases. “We do love the idea of being able to split our time between city living and rural living,” Polo says, noting that he now realizes just how much he loves a home surrounded by mountains.
The decision to go between the two extremes was a longtime dream that was “always just talk and not much action” for the pair, Polo says. “We probably would not have our place in Tennessee if it wasn’t for the fact that the pandemic pushed us out of the city.” Buying a home during a global crisis was “stressful at times,” says Polo, but they would definitely travel the same route all over again—literally. “We have realized that we should have never worried so much about doing something like this.”
It’s a sentiment that Los Angeleno Kilee Hughes shares since she’s made her second home base in Colorado off and on since the first summer after the pandemic struck. “It has really reminded me that when I want to do something, I shouldn’t put it off and wait for a ‘better time,’” she says. “We really don’t know what’s in store for us in this world and when you’re considering a lifestyle change, whether it’s moving, dating, work, school or really, anything, if it’s replaying constantly in your head, listen to that voice and run with it.”
So run, in a sense, Hughes did. The founder and CEO of the beauty, wellness, and lifestyle public relations outfit Six One Agency was living alone in LA and found that not having constant companionship—not even a pet—was all “a bit mentally draining. I felt much more confined and cooped up than I had expected.”
Hughes—who says that spontaneity could be her middle name—began to think about her next move.
“I thought getting back into nature and operating out of a slower, more down-to-earth city would fuel and satisfy me more,” she says.
Like Polo and his husband, Hughes wanted to explore her options but didn’t have a definitive destination firmly in mind.
“I’ve always been very much a ‘this feels right for now so let’s run with it’ type of person,” she explains. With family in California, Hughes wanted to be able to return to the state easily, including by car if necessary, but surrounding states like Texas, Utah, Arizona, and Oregon didn’t hold much appeal for her. She decided Colorado was where she wanted to be, packed her bags, and headed to Boulder—without any preconceptions of how the move would play out. “My thought process was to travel freely: no plans, no road map,” Hughes says.
She ended up staying at the Embassy Suites in Boulder for her first three months in Colorado, and it turned out to be exactly what she needed. “An empty hotel with amenities, top-floor views of the skyline, and a pool were fuel for my soul,” she says.
When it came to her heart and dating, Hughes also found the nourishment she craved, especially after she moved on to Denver. “I tried to be as social as possible without putting myself or others at risk of COVID-19,” she says, joking that the Mile High City “is not known as Men-ver for nothing!”
Despite coronavirus, meeting people was “pretty easy and effortless” as vaccines became more plentiful and restrictions eased up, and Hughes found others “just wanted to connect,” she says. “The downside to the pandemic is that it has caused us all to be socially isolated and awkward, but we work through it.”
As a Black small business owner, she’s also working on expanding her LA-based agency into a new market, which has been an unexpected but welcome boon. “Colorado affords me the opportunity to transition from small fish in an overactive pond in the beauty, lifestyle, and wellness brand consulting space to potentially dominating an entirely untapped landscape,” she says.
In her personal life, Hughes takes a more philosophical approach when thinking about her pandemic experience in Colorado: “I fully believe that every action out in the universe outside of your control helps guide you to where you’re supposed to be.”
Sabina Hitchen and her husband, Alexander, would agree. In March 2020, the two were working in New York City and living with their now-2-1/2-year-old daughter, Juliette, across the Hudson River in Englewood, New Jersey. The family’s home was on the tenth floor of a condo building, and using a shared elevator with other tenants—some of whom were becoming sick with coronavirus—was becoming, as Hitchen says, “an impossible situation.”
The parents were aware their options were becoming more and more limited each day. “One night I just knew in my gut we had to go. We had to get out of the city,” she explains. “At the time, I thought it’d be just for a few weeks. I packed up our car with essentials that night, and the next morning we drove to Maine. It really was a casual thought that became serious action pretty quickly, but times were intense. We were just thinking about our family and expecting we’d return within a month.”
As they drove north toward the state where her parents and sister live, Hitchen says they whispered their goodbye to New York City under their breaths, and her thoughts kept returning to a line from an E.B. White poem her sibling had just shared with her: “I would really rather feel bad in Maine than feel good anywhere else.” Leaving, she thought, “just felt like the right choice” at the time.
Well over a year later, it still does. The family found an Airbnb and kept extending their stay since Hitchen, the founder of PressforSuccess.com, was able to work from anywhere running her company, which creates online education and publicity resources for small business owners. Her husband easily continued his job as a media consultant working from home. They decided to put down permanent roots in Portland.
Leaving during the beginning of the pandemic did prove to be difficult in many ways, but the most challenging aspect of the move for Hitchen is that she has yet to return to the New York area since going to Maine. “It happened so suddenly and I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye—to friends, to my favorite coffee shop people, to the spots that hold special memories, to the expectations of the future I’d have on the East Coast, to so many parts of our life that came before the pandemic,” she says.
At the same time, her family has gained just as much as they’ve lost, including a “soothing” newfound connection to nature and loved ones. “At the end of the day, your family and your health are all that matter, and the people you love are what makes a home—and you can recreate that anywhere,” Hitchen says. “So though this has been one hell of an 18 months, someday we’ll look back on it and think, ‘This is where our story began, again.’”